Only four years ago, Cole Prochaska “weighed as much as three men.” After trading his 5,000-calorie a day diet for a pair of sneakers, the 41-year-old man walked his way to a dramatic weight loss, proudly revealing he is now the size of “one person.”
In 2021, Florida’s Cole Prochaska didn’t know exactly how much he weighed, only that he tipped the scales at more than 585 pounds, the highest number the scale would measure.
The man, now 41, explains he’s been heavy since he was only six, and has lived a sedentary lifestyle with lots of overeating.
According to Today, his “overeating” included gorging on several bags of chips and a 12-pack of soda cans in one day. And, when he went out for fast food, he’d eat five cheeseburgers or a whole pizza “easy.”
He estimates he was consuming about 5,000 calories a day.
“I felt pretty bad,” Prochaska said. “I would always put on a happy exterior because that’s what a lot of big people do. But I was a pretty lonely person. You don’t want to go to anywhere because you don’t want to have to worry about fitting in the chairs and worry about having to walk very far, what you’re going to wear.”
He also couldn’t exercise as he was short of breath.
When his relationship of seven years was nearing its end, Prochaska finally realized it was time to make some changes.
“I knew she had lost respect for me because I was just a really big person and didn’t do anything, and I wasn’t going anywhere in life where I needed to go,” Prochaska says.
“I was trying to save the relationship. I didn’t save the relationship, but I saved myself.”
Step by step
His journey began with one simple step – literally. At first, he could only manage a couple of blocks, but he made a promise to himself: just keep moving. Each day, he pushed a little harder, and before he knew it, those short walks turned into a daily routine that kept him motivated.
“I hold myself accountable! It’s the only way to take control of your life,” he tweets in a post about refusing to back out of a walk due to inclement weather.
